Aurora HDR Pro1.2.1

Just a heads up. The new 2017 version will not open the previous version's mpau files. If you want to make additional edits to the previous version's file, you will need to keep the previous version on your computer. Otherwise you will only be able to edit whatever files that the previous version exported, or start over and recreate them in the new version. If Macphun intends to update Aurora HDR every year, which I can only assume they will, this might be a concern down the road in a few years.

Is the update good for the version that MacUpdate sold with the recent bundle?

This software is total CRAP! I would not recommend it at all. Maybe 6 months or so down the road when they get all the bugs worked out - but as of now it is USELESS! The customer service email responses are nice, but I bought the pro version of this software before it was released and they have done 4 updates to try and get it working and it is still CRAP! I have contacted the customer service people several times and I get the same response - "Please be patient, our people are working on a fix: but there have been 4 updates and so far no fix! Carol Q

This product is wholly unusable to me (both 1.0 and 1.1.1). Invoking Aurora via the Aperture plugin leaves a modal alert window up with no controls whatsover saying "Plugin Started...." with no way to close it, nor any way to do anything in Aperture except Force Quit it. I suppose I could export the RAWs from Aperture and operate on them solely in the application that way but I won't. I'm not going to change my workflow to work around a buggy app. If I need HDR I'll stick with the Photomatix HDR plugin. It's ugly...but it works.

I have bought some of Ratcliff’s tutorials, and I own Macphun’s Intensify as it came with a bundle I bought some years ago, so I’ve been bombarded with news and requests to pre-order. There is a trial version so I gave this a go. Aurora HDR will do nothing good for me personally, I find it rather pointless. Someone mentioned how Macphun is good at marketing, this is exactly why they went to Mr. Ratcliff who is also extremely good at marketing and hype. If you’re like me it’ll tickle your curiosity enough to test it, for others they might think they’re buying the holy grail of HDR, but really I am doubtful. The experience of using this is very similar to Photomatix: you have a bunch of sliders but no idea what they are actually doing, so you click around brainlessly having no clue which does what, until you get to a point where you’re so confused about what you’ve done that you think it’s time to stop. You tweak it a little bit more until you think it doesn’t look too horrible and you’re done. One of the big selling points is how fast that application is. For me it isn’t. I have a top of the line brand new 5K 27inch iMac with almost all options maxed out: fastest CPU, fastest GPU with 4GB of RAM, SSD, etc. I loaded 3 bracketed exposures, ticked alignment and reduce chromatic aberration and clicked okay. It took a long time, seemed stuck at 75% of the chromatic aberration process though no sign of the app crashing, it was just chugging at 300% CPU. After 15 minutes I had to leave for a game of tennis. When I came back after 1h+ it was finally done, yay! (PS: I didn’t have that problem with other sets of images that I’ve tried, but if it did it once it will do it again). I reset the settings, it looked bad but less horrible than my first try with a first set of images. I zoomed in 100% and there I noticed also that Aurora isn’t that fast then: span around a big file at 100% and it’ll be no faster than Photomatix or other plugins. It’s certainly much slower than the HDR function of Lightroom on the same set of images. It leaves me scratching my head somehow. Yes, there’s layers and masking, but I have no incentive to go that far because I find the first part of the workflow vastly random. Seeing the results, I also cannot justify spending the money on this (I’ve funded Trey Ratcliff’s luxurious lifestyle enough already ;)) Does one really need a dedicated HDR software these days anyway?

Could someone please tell me why there is such a hefty price difference between Appstore and here? Isn't it the same product or is it on sale on Appstore? Thanks. Fariborz AMIRSHAHI - Verona (Italy)

Positives:I really like the company (Macphun) and the user interface design and feature set of the tool. Negatives: The results are horrible with Olympus RAW files. I compared with Photomatix 5.1 (another HDR tool) and Aurora HDR delivered garish colors (no adjustment of color temp or tint would help) and exaggerated HDR effects (I used a -3, 0, +3 bracket). I'm more after natural looking HDR - the product was co-developed by a person who is known for surrealistic applications of HDR - this seems to have led to a product that may be more useful for those types of images vs. my objective to preserve a more natural look and feel. The de-ghosting option led to numerous strange artifacts - I had initially turned it on to deal with small branches of trees shifting in the wind, which led to large areas of the background sky looking like spotted cows. Summary: I don't see how this tool can be salvaged - it's only a version 1, but several parts of the core engine (color, HDR algorithm, de-ghosting) are vastly inferior to the "one click" experience I'm accustomed to from another tool. Furthermore, despite offering numerous strong options, there is no way to select the HDR approach appropriate for a particular image (unlike HDR Projects Professional or Photomatix). Disclaimer: Most of the other Macphun products get solid 5 stars from me (highly recommended). This one isn't ready for prime time and should not have been shipped as-is.